The Line in the Sand
by Emerson Quinn
Summary: He found he could not alter his feelings for her as easily as he changed his face. And although the metamorphosis of regeneration was an agonizing process, nothing compared to the unbearable pain of the thought of losing her.  Ten/Rose, Eleven/Rose


**The Line in the Sand**

He'd been silent, as of late. The incessant rambling of his addled train of thought and the non-stop need to vocalize his internal monologue had ceased, halted by some unutterable uncertainty. He listened, instead. Listened to her. Every word she said, every word she didn't say, and all the thoughts in-between. His Time Lord brain attempted to dissect each simple, beautiful, complex thing that left her lips. He searched each syllable, every sentence for hidden meanings or half-confessed truths.

For all his listening, though, he never heard her…truly heard her.

They traversed together; mist-laden beaches, snow covered mountains, bustling cities and quiet towns. The future. The past. Bound for everywhere and nowhere. Speech eluded him, still. He could take her on the journey of thousand miles or a thousand years, but he couldn't cover the distance to her heart. He could tell her a million truths or a million lies, except that which truly mattered, that which she longed to hear so she could sing it back to him with an open soul and open arms. But he never crossed that line.

All that time, drifting through the empty space and empty words, through the star-lit nights and star-strewn dreams, he somehow had lost his focus. Lost his faith, really, in what they were. It was so dark, now, and he could not navigate his way back to reality. He was adrift, weightless, in his sea of uncertainty and was desperate to tether himself again to that which added gravity to his mythical existence, reined in his massive ego and stabilized his unsteady wandering. The one thing that mattered, that which he shone in and reflected from and showed him his true self, clearly and without prejudice. The only thing he believed in.

Rose.

The loom of his mind spun only dreams of her and the fabric was so thin…so delicate. It could tear with the most innocuous thought or the gentlest of gazes, yet he wrapped himself in it. Her honest words were his truth, if only he could let himself sink into the sweetness they offered.

Trust. Hope.

Love.

But fear stopped him, held him back with tenuous intangible ropes and sank into his gut with heartrending finality. He could taste it, that fear. It was bitter and vile and he knew she must be so much sweeter. He longed to truly taste her honey-tinged words as they melted in his ears. He saw her toe the proverbial line, and again, he could not bring himself to cross it. The desire to do so welled in him, like an uncontrollable sea.

Yet, silently, he begged her…_come with me, come with me…follow me, don't turn away…_

But what good were those sentiments if she never heard them?

The Valiant Child. Bad Wolf. The yellow girl…

When she'd been surrounded in the flames of scarlet, her hair and eyes glowing golden from the Time Vortex, she had known no fear. Even after, there may have been moments of uncertainty but she was never, truly afraid. The Bad Wolf would take the hand of the Oncoming Storm and brave any and all. She'd follow him down every dark path, on any day.

Rose had saved him before. Back when he was angry and impatient and dying of guilt. When memories of the Time War loomed in his mind, charred and burning and accusatory. Then he'd changed and he was so afraid she would leave him. As his body had burned with the regeneration, his past faces flitted through his mind. All those fragments of lives that were once him and not him, lives that would never come again. And each one, at the end, had been so empty. Until Rose. She filled his hearts and took up the empty space, crowded his already busy thoughts. And when he didn't know who he was, she helped him discover the man he had been, and the man he might become. With her at his side, of course. She created and recreated him every day. Rose pulled him out of the cold and dark and into the light…brighter than his familiar stars or the suns of a hundred planets.

She should go, walk away now before the unknowable yet certain future happened. He'd rather see her safe in Mickey's arms than dying in his. She would die, eventually. The ends of time were neatly tied…yet still.

He loved her.

He found he could not alter his feelings for her as easily as he changed his face. And although the metamorphosis of regeneration was an agonizing process, nothing compared to the unbearable pain of the thought of losing her. His mind battled his hearts. _Walk away, follow me, go, stay…_ The future called to him, like a siren song, and he knew he could never resist it. Yes, he may travel in Time and Space, to the past, to history, but he was always moving _forward_. There were so many possibilities with Rose. So many _maybes_ to look forward to. No time to stop now. And if she walked away, if she left, then all those might be futures and what ifs could never happen. But she did not cross the line into his embrace. Not without a word from him.

Yet silently, from her…_don't forsake me, don't leave me_…

So she stood on that beach, watched as he burned to light the stars and she drew her line in the sand. He understood, then, that she had offered him a chance with her question. And a test. All he had to do was tell her, finish the sentence and the sentiment. But he could not say the words, and her eyes flashed with anger at his betrayal. His lies. _No, not to you, _he'd told her. But he'd abandoned her anyway, the choice already made for her. He stood mute instead, watching, knowing, as his second self leaned in to her to whisper what he could not, what he had forced her to do. He'd gritted his teeth and walked away as Rose embraced his half-human self. It was the most selfish and selfless thing he had ever done in his more than 900 years.

Even then…even in that moment of finality he'd repeated again and again in his mind, _follow me, please…please, follow me. _But she'd taken the decision he'd effectively made for her and sank into it, too desperate after living a year without him to fight for him or against him anymore. She was holding the Other Doctor's hand as he disappeared and the police box slammed shut behind him. The sound of the TARDIS' door closing was the worst sound he'd ever heard.

Until tonight. Until now.

It was the sound of his hearts breaking yet again, because of just one question. From a broken, old man.

It had surprised him, after he regenerated again, that her face still swam in his dreams. But looking back, he realized his every incarnation from his Ninth until his Final would hold her as his most beloved. The Tenth Doctor's last words may have been, "_I don't want to go_," but his penultimate thought had been, '_Rose_.' Now, there was neither a moment in time nor a second in the day that wasn't infused with her. He may not be consciously thinking of her, but somewhere in his mind and heart he could hear the echo of her name whispered reverently. Not even the Girl Who Waited could still that voice. The Memory of Rose pulled at him like the tide, and he could not conceal it. Not now.

"_One last day with your beloved. Which day would you choose?" _

He was strangely silent in answer to that old man, eyes averted lest he reveal too much. The air was cold, like the pods before him, like his regret. There was an emotion he had never experienced before as well, swirling around his chest. It took several beats of his hearts before he could name it. Envy. Kazran, who'd never done one good thing for the universe in his life, had the chance that he (who had given up almost everything for that self-same universe) had let slip away twice now. Even if it was for only a day. So many wonderful and perfect days passed through the prism of his mind. Precious memories of things he'd never want to change. But each one so beautiful…so achingly _right_, that he realized he would give up a century or two of his lives to experience them again with her.

He knew which day he'd choose. _That_ _day_. A day he lived and relived over and again in his every waking moment and in his far too infrequent dreams. Bad Wolf Bay. The worst day of his life, when he hadn't been brave enough to believe that it could work. When he'd forced her hand and her heart, driving her into the arms of another. The cursed few hours when he had broken her trust in him and revealed himself to be just what she had feared, and capable of what he'd promised never to do.

The day Rose Tyler drew her line in the sand.

He would take that day and rend it to pieces. He would pull her into his arms and confess everything to her. He would stay there with her, or drag her back into the TARDIS with him. He'd leave Donna with his half-human self on that beach, imploding universes be damned. Give himself the happy ending, keep what he had lost…and maybe, for a few precious moments, find the peace that was ever elusive.

He'd take his final reward. Rose.

But not now. The ethics of Time still ruled his mind, and _that_ overruled his hearts. Someday…someday, when the end of _his_ Time was near and it was impossible to save the day yet again. When the universe no longer needed him, or the End of All Things had come…then, only then he'd go back to _that day, _and be with his most beloved companion.

That would be the day he would cross the line in the sand.


End file.
